Been playing with the internal power connectors of my desktop recently to see if I had any spare 8-pin power connectors for a new video card. I just noticed that in the process of fiddling with the power cables, one of the two 6-pin connectors for my 5850 card had become disconnected. As far as I can tell, it's been like that for an entire day, during which my computer has been on and I've played a couple hours of Skyrim.

I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. In fact, if I hadn't just popped the case open again to check if I had any spare SATA power cables, I would not have noticed the cable loose at all.

Did I damage the video card in anyway?

supaflyx3

January 18, 2012 02:36 AM

No, probably not. If it needed the extra power and couldnt get it, your computer would have most likely shut down automaticly.

jibz

January 18, 2012 02:36 AM

Shouldn't be damaged in any way. If it lacked the power your system would have probably black screened on you.

gingerbee

January 18, 2012 03:32 AM

no worries at all it clearly got enough juice from the pci-e slot and the one power cable connected you know how you know it worked lmao

Dragonstongue

January 18, 2012 07:43 AM

I am surprised it had enough power with only 1 6 pin attached :P

But yes, if it did not have enough pwoer, it wouldnt have powered on, there is sensors in the card for that reason, not enough power, it will try, but usually results in shut down.

BTW most cards, not sure about your 5850, now have little leds on them to show if there is a problem with them, the little sequence of lights will tell you on boot if there is a specific problem with the card, my 4870 as an example, had specific sequence to tell if there was not enough power feeding to the card, among other things :)

Soultribunal

January 18, 2012 07:59 AM

You are very lucky, but since most of these cards don't need teh full required power that they can be provided it worked.